Backing off
The whole thing was the rankest sort of anti-American bullshit to start with, and the “coverup” smear was in a sense the rankest of all, hinting as it does at the idea that the military is corrupt to its very core. Of course, that’s what those staunch troop-supporting liberals want you to think, since their whole program is to get everyone blaming Bush for said corruption, in order to steal some buoyancy for their own sinking electoral ship. The fact that such a tactic is destructive to the morale and effectiveness of the defenders of American freedom is of merely secondary (if any) concern to them, naturally:
WASHINGTON — The general charged with investigating whether Marines tried to cover up the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha has completed his report, finding that Marine officers failed to ask the right questions, an official close to the investigation said Friday.
Nothing in the report points to a “knowing cover-up” of the facts by the officers supervising the Marines involved in the November incident, the official said. Rather, he said, officers from the company level through the staff of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force in Baghdad failed to demand “a thorough explanation” of what happened in Haditha.
Sloppy, maybe, but not brutal, inhuman, or hopelessly corrupt, as Mr Hysteria — no, not Sully; the despicable Jack Murtha…well, okay, Sully too — would have it. And speaking of ol’ Cut & Run (remember when American military men, especially commanding officers, had nicknames like “Old Hickory,” “Old Blood and Guts,” and the like?), Allah’s been Photoshopping again (and several others, too), and a most welcome return it is.
And Insty notes this throwaway at the end of the LAT piece, calling it an instance of “war crime rowback” — I’d call it liberal-media propaganda artists and certain anti-American types at the ACLU trying to duck having their own revolting smear attempts come back to bite them in the ass, myself:
The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday released a heavily redacted version of a military report on detainee abuses by special operations forces in Iraq. The report concludes that a series of sensational allegations by detainees could not be substantiated.
The report, compiled by Army Brig. Gen. Richard P. Formica, was completed last year, but a declassified version was not prepared until this month. It says some of the minor accusations — such as that detainees were fed only bread and water for more than two weeks — had merit. But it found there was no evidence for most of the more controversial allegations.
Well, duh. The only people who ever believed that tripe in the first place were the usual antiwar boneheads anyway. And they’d believe absolutely anything at all, just so long as it painted the US in a negative enough light.
Update! Dang it, forgot the link to Glenn’s post, which is here. What with the new job and all, I haven’t had enough time to either post OR proofread, as y’all no doubt have noticed. Apologies to all concerned.
- Entries
here's how it works.
If theres not a crime? there's a cover-up, if theres not a cover-up, then what crimes don't we know about?
THATS the method of the pricks who use this sort of attack, passing it off as logic.
could not be construed as part of a cover-up?
Without knowing the situation on the ground in Haditha, it's kind of hard to know what the "right questions" might be.
And why are these guys so worried about what's going on in Iraq now? They weren't too worried about it when Saddam was feeding folks through shredders and filling mass graves and driving out the Marsh arabs, and, well, you get the picture.
In other words, the ACLU is and always has been a bunch of gutless commie punks.